Your Right to Know

LOS ANGELES — Kori Kirkbride didn’t get that immediate feeling of joy and relief when she heard
the U.S. Supreme Court had struck down the Defense of Marriage Act.

Instead, it hit after she found out that the court’s decision will allow her Polish wife, Kasia
Kurzatkowska, to apply for a green card, ending a heart-wrenching seven years in which the two
periodically have been separated by immigration laws.

“When we sat with our attorney, it became real,” said Kirkbride, 40, of Walnut Creek, Calif. “
Waiting for this decision was like waiting to find out if you are pregnant — your whole life can
change if you are. Now, we can have a future and buy a house and have a child.”

Kirkbride and Kurzatkowska are among an estimated 26,000 same-sex couples in the U.S. with one
partner who is not a U.S. citizen. Under the law, a subset of these couples — those who are married
or considering marriage — had been prevented from applying for green cards for their spouses or
fiances.

In the past decade, some of those noncitizens have been deported, even though they legally were
married. Many others have been in a legal limbo, with one partner living undocumented in the United
States. Some couples have left the country to be somewhere they can work and live legally.

Now, legally married same-sex couples can apply for a green card for their noncitizen spouse.
And U.S. citizens will be able to file fiance-visa applications if their future spouses live in
another country and do not have a visa, according to Immigration Equality, a group that works on
immigration issues on behalf of gay couples.

The process includes a medical exam for the spouse applying for the green card, and showing that
the foreign spouse won’t be a financial burden to the U.S., immigration lawyer Cara Jobson
said.